Zambia deployed armed police in the capital Lusaka on Sunday after President Levy Mwanawasa overtook his opponent’s early lead in the election count, prompting allegations of ballot rigging.
Members of an elite paramilitary unit patrolled the main business district while others took up positions at the privately owned Post newspaper, where supporters of opposition leader Michael Sata staged a protest on Saturday.
State radio said the paper had been placed under police protection.
Sata, a veteran politician known as ”King Cobra”, challenged official results released on Saturday that showed Mwanawasa surging to a dramatic lead, and warned of ”severe consequences” if officials ignored his complaint.
Sata initially looked set to trounce Mwanawasa, but the race tightened on Saturday as the president scored big wins in rural areas, drawing protests from Sata that thousands of ballots had been destroyed.
The ballot pits Mwanawasa, whose economic policies have won praise from international donors, against Sata’s pledges to distribute wealth from Zambia’s huge copper deposits to the poor, and to get tough with foreign investors — particularly the Chinese, who he accuses of exploiting workers.
Results released by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) gave Mwanawasa 510 523 of 1 459 226 votes certified so far, from 69 of Zambia’s 150 constituencies — more than 48 hours after Thursday’s vote. Sata trailed him on 473 332 votes and Hakainde Hichilema of the United Democratic Alliance, a wealthy businessman popular with the middle class, had 441 400.
The turnout in the 69 constituencies was 70,7%.
‘Ballots spoiled’
Sata said he would lodge a formal complaint on Sunday after he found ECZ’s figures did not tally with the numbers his Patriotic Front party’s observers had recorded.
”The [electoral commission] judge must not proceed to give the chief justice results of the presidential election before verification because 400 000 votes … have disappeared without being accounted for or spoiled,” Sata said at his Lusaka home on Saturday evening.
But Vernon Mwaanga, spokesperson for the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), insisted the election had been fair.
”MMD has not tampered with the election results. We are also waiting to hear who would be the winner … like other parties,” he told the Zambia Daily Mail.
Mwanawasa (58) is running for a second and final five-year term based on his strong economic record, which included winning billions of dollars in debt relief and boosting economic growth above 5%.
Sata (69) has appealed to poorer classes with his pledges of wealth redistribution and tax cuts.
The electoral commission was praised by international observers for an efficient and transparent election, but has now come under criticism for the slow release of results. — Reuters